


The Silence Between Storms

by flightrules



Series: Fireworks [2]
Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VI: Return of the Jedi, Star Wars Original Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Friends With Benefits, Hurt/Comfort, I was only going to write one of these ever, Outdoor Sex, Porn With Plot, Skywalker angst, but it turned out there was a sequel, go figure, well some plot at least
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-14
Updated: 2016-08-14
Packaged: 2018-08-08 16:10:38
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,028
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7764415
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flightrules/pseuds/flightrules
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A sequel to Shrapnel Brighter Than the Stars. </p><p>Luke and Kala develop a friendship after that one night. They're comrades at the bar and in battle, but never more than that--until she finds him on his own at the victory celebration on Endor's forest moon. He's bruised and battered, and trying to pretend he's fine. But Kala's known him long enough to realize, he's nowhere near okay.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Silence Between Storms

**Author's Note:**

> This won't make much sense if you haven't read Shrapnel Brighter Than the Stars. I'll wait if you wanna go read it... Then please c'mon back and enjoy part two of my mortifying foray into Skywalker porn.

Luke’s eyes are still open when Kala wakes. He's been thinking, and not thinking, and not sleeping at all. He's been watching the room’s reflection in the window. The reflection is dissolving now into the pale grey of early dawn.

He feels Kala stir against his body, her hair sliding across his chest as she turns her face into him, cuddling closer for a moment. She lifts her head, then sits up awkwardly as she comes fully awake. 

Luke’s muscles feel stiff and the arm that was holding her has gone a little numb. It’s going to hurt to move so he doesn’t just yet. 

Kala rubs her hands over her eyes and combs her fingers through her hair, sweeping the straight, dark strands away from her face.

“Skywalker,” she says. It sounds rueful, but it sounds _alive._

He makes the effort to sit up, too, to sit beside her. Muscles in his neck and upper back protest. “You alright?” he asks.

She groans. “You asked me that last night.”

Luke nods. “You weren’t.”

She shifts in the narrow sleeping area, sitting straighter, respecting his space. “Thank you.”

What should he say to that? “You’re welcome” sounds like he did her a favor, and it wasn’t that. Pilots look after each other. It’s just what they do. 

While he’s thinking, she climbs carefully past him and begins to pick up her clothes from the middle of the floor. He forgets he’s looking for words as she slides into her black leggings, replaces the wrap around her chest, slips her white t-shirt over her head. Her hair is disheveled, there’s red around her eyes, there are bruises at her neck that he put there. Luke has always found his lovers beautiful, and she is no exception. 

Kala meets his eyes as she pulls the zipper of her orange pilot’s fatigues closed at her neck. 

“I hurt you, didn’t I?” she says. “When you--It made you sad.”

“No,” he says quickly, shaking his head. “It was--” He doesn’t know how to say what it was. He just knows that she seems better this morning, and that was the point of it all.

Kala puts on her boots, balancing with one hand on the white table. She kneels to tie the laces. Then she sits beside him, shoulder against his, and kisses his cheek. When he doesn’t pull away, she kisses his mouth, gently, without heat. “They said you can do things,” she says, and she smiles, a good smile, as she says it. “They were really fucking right.”

After she leaves, Luke pulls his own white t-shirt back on, to stop the feel of air against his skin. The softness of the knit cloth doesn't help. He rests his body back against the cushioned surface of his bed and tries to immerse his mind in Force energy, to let the physical world go for a while.

It makes it worse. 

There is so much life in the trees that shade this building, in the thin-stalked greenery that's grown up along the walkways. He’s aware of the other people in Building Three and, more faintly, in the buildings beyond. Some are still sleeping, some are moving about, a few are enjoying each other’s bodies (or their own), and all of them are brimming with vital energy that shimmers and vibrates and mixes in his mind. He can sense every single one of the thousands of five-legged rolybugs that burrow under the barracks walls.

The Force connects all living things, and the main thing he's getting from it right now is that he's all alone in this small, empty room, and if he doesn't find someone to share his own energy with, and soon, he's going to jump out of his skin.

Luke swears softly in Huttese. Then he gets to his feet and goes to find Wedge.

 

Over the next year, Luke watches Kala put the pieces together, figure herself out. 

She drinks less. Laughs less, but when she does, that glow he first saw in her is back. 

She gives Luke a run for his money on training flights, whooping over the comm through wild maneuvers as Wedge hollers at her to behave.

In battle, she's dead serious, following commands with precision and that fierce natural talent. Saves the lives of her squadmates many times over, blasting TIEs out of the air with maneuvers that leave Wedge shaking his head in admiration. 

She cries now when they lose someone, when they get back to ground and tears are no longer a hazard. Gold squadron wraps themselves around her, and sometimes they cry too.

And over that year and the ones that follow, Kala becomes a friend. Not a friend like Wedge or Han or Leia or Chewbacca. They don’t show up in each others’ space uninvited, settling in like family. They don’t share secrets, except the one: he hasn’t told anyone about that night and as far as he knows, she hasn’t either. 

What they do is drink together now and then, check in on each other sometimes after a bad mission, share hugs sometimes after a good one. Tease each other and insult each other the way only pilots can.

Kala’s a presence in his life, a face he looks for at briefings. Someone he gives just a little extra trust.

 

By the time of the Battle of Endor, Kala’s a squadron leader shepherding new pilots from first blood to competence. She’s got a reputation for being smart, firm, and absolutely in charge. Her team says “Yes, ma’am,” even in the middle of a firefight. 

She’s also known for checking on them after battle, for dropping off food if someone doesn’t make it to dinner. For that time Pathfinder Six shot down his squadmate with a misplaced laser cannon blast, and she sank with him to the floor of the hangar, in the midst of hustling deck crews and scurrying droids, and let him sob against her shoulder. 

 

Down on the surface of Endor’s moon, surrounded by singing Ewoks and cheering Rebels, watching fragments of the second Death Star burn in the atmosphere like a meteor storm, Luke doesn’t know she’s made it through the battle. 

He doesn’t even think about it, to be honest. For a while he’s busy with Leia, with Han and Lando and Chewbacca, with Threepio and Artoo who are friends just as real as the others. He’s exchanging hugs with Wedge, sitting together with backs against a tree, watching people from so many different places drinking and dancing together while Ewoks sing song after song. 

Ewoks may not have much technology, but they know how to throw a party.

Wedge leaves him when his old friend from Green Squadron, incredibly still alive, too, after all this time, turns up in front of them, huge grin on her face and a drink in her hand. She reaches out and Wedge lets her pull him to his feet. “See you in the morning,” Wedge calls over his shoulder, and Luke calls back “Sure, if you can still stand,” as they disappear in the crowd.

He doesn’t much feel like standing, himself. The adrenaline’s wound down. His muscles have started to stiffen, and he’s feeling every bruise. His left hip, where he landed when that catwalk came crashing down, throbs with new pain every time he moves his leg. Both shoulders ache from battering his lightsaber against his father’s, the power of sheer fury sending him beyond his normal strength, beyond caring about the strain on muscles and tendons. Chest, back, neck, legs, even his fingers hurt from the muscle spasms caused by the Emperor’s energy lightning. 

Leia and Han find him still leaning against the tree as the party swirls around him. She bends down to kiss his cheek and he isn’t going to make her worry, so he smiles up at her and lifts a hand to grasp Han’s before telling them to go and enjoy the rest of the night together. 

Han looks so proud to have Leia on his arm.

Luke sits there a little while longer, but it’s getting chilly, and he’s afraid that if he doesn’t move soon, he won’t be able to get up at all. He gets onto one knee, then struggles to his feet, one hand against the tree to keep from falling. 

He’s standing there, swaying a bit, when Kala finds him. 

“Skywalker!” 

“Kala!” He greets her with genuine delight, wrapping his arms around her to return the hug she offers. She's in her flightsuit, deep green for the division she's in these days, top folded down and sleeves tied together like always. “Were you up there?”

“Along with my Pathfinders,” she says. “All seven of them are running around here somewhere.” 

“All seven,” Luke repeats, and the number feels good to say. 

Kala grins. “All seven. They're a hell of a team.”

“Because you made them that way.”

“Yeah,” Kala says, “that's right, I did.”

It's good to see her happy. It's good to see everyone happy, tonight. If only he weren't about to fall over from exhaustion.

Kala's eyes narrow. “You alright, Skywalker?”

They've known each other a long time, Luke thinks, even if never very well. “No,” he says. 

“Something bad?”

He shakes his head, and pain shoots through the muscles in his neck. “Just tired.”

She steps closer, reaches out, settles his arm across her shoulders. “You have a place to sleep?”

 

Imperial shuttles aren't built for comfort. But it's warmer in there, out of the night air. 

The shuttle sits beyond the edges of the party, a long enough walk that they've left the light from the bonfires behind. The sounds of Ewok songs still follow them, though, until Kala secures the door and leaves the singing outside.

The cockpit of the shuttle, with its two rows of upright seats, isn't built for sleeping. The space behind it isn't either, but it has an open floor where crates can be stacked or extra seating installed. On this shuttle, the one Luke flew down from the Death Star, the open space is where his father's body lay before he built the funeral pyre. 

Luke slides his arm from Kala's shoulders and sinks down onto that same floor, stretching out full length with his head on folded arms. The floor is hard, but he's grateful to be horizontal. The cold metal feels soothing against the many places his body aches.

Kala's voice comes from above him. “What the hell happened to you, Skywalker?” 

Luke speaks against the floor. “Emperor tried to kill me.”

He can hear the sigh in Kala's tone. “Of course he did.” 

Luke musters enough energy to add, “He failed.”

“I see that.”

“Got killed instead,” Luke mutters, and falls asleep.

 

He wakes some time later to near darkness. The metal floor is still cool but the air is warm. Faint green and yellow lights glow from the control panels up in the cockpit. The top of Kala's head is outlined above one of the passenger seats.

Luke climbs carefully upright, pausing several times to let his muscles adjust to movement. With his Jedi training, it's easy to make his way silently across the small space to the airlock door. There's nothing he can do about the noise from the servos in the mechanism that opens the door and lowers the steps. 

Luke takes each step with care to avoid jarring. He moves a dozen meters away to relieve his bladder against one of the giant trees. Walking makes his calves and thighs burn. It even hurts to unbuckle. Back at the shuttle, he stands for a while, looking up at the brilliant starscape beyond the treetops. The night is quiet now, the sounds of the celebration over. There is only the faint hiss of wind in high branches. 

The planet Endor hangs, reddish brown, in the sky of its moon.

“Just a planet,” comes Kala's voice from behind him.

“Not a battle station,” Luke agrees.

Kala sits on the steps leading down from the shuttle. “It starts again in the morning, doesn't it,” she says. “Dead Emperor doesn't mean dead Empire.”

In the cool night, under the blazing stars, Luke realizes he’s never really thought about it. Taking down the Emperor, stopping Vader… that's as far as he's ever planned. It should be over. Somehow he thought it would be over. 

He has no idea what the dawn will bring.

“You got Vader, too?” Kala asks.

Luke can't imagine explaining right now. “He's dead.”

From behind and above him, he can feel Kala's shape in the Force, feel her nod.

“What're you doing the rest of tonight, Skywalker?” she says.

Sleeping, hopefully. Waking up in a few hours, reconnecting with the fleet, climbing back into the cockpit of his x-wing. Shooting at people, probably. Dodging laser cannon fire. 

“Skywalker.”

He tries to turn to look at her. He has to pivot at the waist because his neck is so stiff, his head will only turn so far.

“Are you alright?” she asks again. He's gotten used to hearing her speak to her Pathfinders with firm authority. In casual conversation she speaks with confidence, doesn't worry too much about what anyone else thinks. Luke knows this tone, too: it’s the one she uses when she walks beside a pilot whose steps are slow and shoulders bent.

He has no wish to be a burden.

They will both need all their strength in the morning.

“Yeah,” he says, taking a step to turn the rest of the way toward her. “I'm alright.”

“I thought Jedi knights didn't lie,” she says in that same gentle tone.

His short laugh makes his chest hurt. “The Jedi code says a lot of things, but it doesn't say anything about that.”

Kala gets up and walks the rest of the way down the steps. She stands in front of him, looking at his hands, and he guesses she's trying to remember. She chooses the left one--the one that's still part of him--and slips her fingers between his. 

“Let’s go, Skywalker.” It's her squadron leader voice now, and even though he still far outranks her, Luke obeys.

 

Kala climbs the steps easily. Her waist is less narrow than it was three years ago, her legs sturdier. She is, what, 21 years old now? There is a firmness to her step even after this day of battle. Even after three years of war.

Luke limps up after her. He's been in this for five years, now. He is only 24.

 

The air is warmer beside the open shuttle door, the life support system humming quietly as it heats the space inside. The interior is dimly lit by the control panel bulbs. 

Luke looks at the cargo space and remembers the weight of black armor and prosthetics.

His steps must have slowed, because Kala's confident stride pauses beside him. 

“Wait,” she says. 

He leans against the curved passage wall. Kala returns with several emergency blankets piled in her arms. “No med kit,” she says. “Either they think they're invincible, or they don't care who gets hurt.”

 

“Sit,” she says, back outside in the starlit darkness. He lowers himself to the ground, knees bent, legs crossed at the ankles. The ground is dry, scattered with wide-bladed grasses and lined with old leaves. Years of lightsaber practice mean he naturally sits with back straight, shoulders squared. He thinks he might like to lie down instead, but he's too tired to bother.

Kala kneels, unfolds one of the blankets, and tucks it around him. 

“We can go back inside,” he says. 

She shakes her head. “Better out here. The Empire never owned these woods."

She shakes out another blanket and draws it around her own shoulders. 

Then, still on her knees, she moves behind him. Places cool hands on the back of his neck. Slides palms and fingers beneath the rough blanket and out to his shoulders, then back to begin kneading muscles at the base of his neck.

“Remember?” she says, and it sounds like a genuine question.

He laughs in spite of the pain it causes in his ribs. “If you’re going to try ordering me around, you're going to be disappointed. I don't think I can move anymore.”

She continues moving her hands, fingers gentle on his back. 

After a while she reaches forward, around his arms, and finds the small snaps that hold his bib-front shirt closed. She holds one hand against his chest while she carefully, gently, opens the snaps with the other.

The touch feels wonderful. “Kala,” he sighs, “rest. It's been a long day.”

“My pilots are all alive,” she tells him, keeping her hand on his chest and, his shirt now open, laying the other on his thigh. “The Death Star is gone.”

The second Death Star, he thinks, remembering his own high after the first one was destroyed. 

“Vader and the Emperor are ended. I'm pretty sure that's thanks to you.”

One evil vanquished, one redeemed. But they rebuilt the Death Star, built it bigger and worse. Will there always be another?

Kala pushes the blanket aside, slowly, and slowly reaches beneath his shirt, sliding it over his shoulders. He thinks of helping her, but that would mean lifting his arms.

The forest air moves across his bared skin. The lower part of his body is warm beneath the blanket. The small wind cools his shoulders and chest and back. It multiplies the touch of Kala's hands.

She puts one hand beneath his left wrist, uses the other to unsnap the cuff and slip the shirt sleeve off. She repeats the movements on the other side, but here she pauses, one hand against his palm--the prosthetic’s palm--and one hand on top, caressing this hidden badge of what he's been through.

Luke shivers. 

Kala leans into him, chest against his back. She pulls the edges of her blanket over his shoulders, too, and wraps her arms around him.

Cool air sneaks in around her arms to touch his bare chest. Heat from her body radiates through her white t-shirt. Its fabric is soft against his back. Her arms are strong. With her chin resting on his shoulder, her straight dark hair, cut short for a pilot's helmet, tickles against his ear.

Kala runs a hand up his chest, the front of his neck, over his jaw. A finger moves across his lips, so lightly that it's barely touching.

Luke's body sags. He doesn't mean to, doesn't mean to make her take his weight, but his head falls back against her and his straight back bends. 

“It's all right,” she says in that soft voice, shifting her own weight so he can lean on her. “Sorry I couldn't find any pain treatment. You look like you could use some.”

“It's not that bad,” he mumbles.

“Does the Jedi code say you're _supposed_ to lie?”

He doesn't answer, because if her tells her how bone-tired, how achy, how bruised all over he feels, she might be afraid to hold him like this. Might be afraid to put her hands on him. And however tender his skin might feel, however deep the bruises, her hands are covering over the memory of that dark Force energy, of the moments when despair made it past his boundaries, of the feeling of lightning made of hatred crackling against his skin. 

The way they're sitting now, her hands are down near his waist, and she curves a palm around his hip, over his trousers, then works her fingers under the waistband to make contact with bare skin. That hand stays still, then, while her other traces up and down over his belly, her fingers feeling out the ridges of muscle. One finger traces around his navel, so gentle, and then that hand rests flat while she inclines her head to bite, just lightly, at the side of his neck above his collarbone.

Luke barely has the energy to groan.

“You still awake, Skywalker?” she says, mouth next to his ear.

“Awake,” he agrees, grateful that a one-word sentence will do.

“Sit up,” she says, helping him, and now he's still leaning on her but they're both sitting taller, his back straighter, and her arms are free to run over his chest, that light touch that almost leaves air between her skin and his. The blanket has fallen from her shoulders and the night air and her hands have his whole body longing for more, for her hands to find the other places that hurt. Which is everywhere. 

He's about to spend the energy to ask when her touch turns to pressure, palms against his pecs and dragging over his nipples, and it brings out the pain of bruised muscles but it's so gentle, too, and tears starts beneath his closed eyelids.

He doesn't think she can see that but his breath hitches, and in response one of her hands moves downward, back to his hip, dips back under his waistband, and then her fingers are working at the clasp of his fly.

Clasp open and zip undone, the shivery forest breeze touches the delicate skin at his groin, and he finds he's getting hard, pushing against the fabric below the open fly. A moment later Kala reaches down and frees him, pushing aside his underclothes so the night breeze can get at that part of him, too.

When he woke up that morning, determined to face down Vader and the Emperor and possibly die doing it, this was not how he expected the day to end.

Kala's hands are on his thighs now, fingers tracing the long muscles, reaching down as far as she can toward his knees and then back up, all the way to the sensitive places where legs meet torso. 

Then her mouth is on the back of his neck, tongue and teeth working on the tight muscles at the base of his skull, the breeze cooling the wetness at his hairline.

He lifts a hand, slowly and with effort, reaching up and behind to cup the side of her head. She shakes her head against it. “Let me,” she says.

“Not fair,” he manages, through lips that will barely move. 

“I've owed you for three years, Skywalker,” she says.

“You don't,” he says, confused and worried, ready to get to his feet and make this stop.

“Not only do I,” she says, and it's not any of her usual tones, it’s just a simple statement, “I've been waiting for my chance.

“So shut up,” and now it's Squadron Leader Kala, “and let me.”

And she does shut him up, because her right hand closes around his cock while her left hand wedges under to find his balls, as her teeth bite into his earlobe.

And somehow she's still so gentle, as if she knows even _that_ part of him hurts, even as she starts a rhythm and matches it with her tongue against his ear.

It's good, it's really good, but she's still behind him and she's someone he cares about and he wants to be able to see her, see her face, know for sure that this is ok.

So he pulls away, fighting against exhaustion. What he sees when he turns is Kala looking worried, as if _she's_ the one who did something wrong.

“I just want to see you,” he says.

Her expression immediately lightens, eyes creasing with the brightness of her smile.

It feels good to smile back, there in the darkness with this woman he's watched grow up, who he's grown up with, who'd rather be out here on the forest floor than inside a warm, locked-tight shuttle that belongs to the Empire.

“How much do you want to see?” she asks, and Luke's grateful for adrenaline because he's able now to say, “Whatever you want to show me.

Kala's grin widens. She stands up--making sure he's OK to sit on his own--and takes a couple of steps away. 

She locks eyes with him. Crosses her arms at her waist, lifts her white T-shirt above her head. Unwinds the wrap from around her chest. 

“You helped me with that,” she says.

“I remember.”

She places a hand on his shoulder, checks if that's ok--it is--and unties one black boot. She slips it off, then straightens up to drop it from waist height.

She does the same with the other while Luke stares.

Kala lowers the zip of her pilot's fatigues the rest of the way, steps out of the jumpsuit, strips off leggings and socks and underclothes.

Then she stands there in the starlight.

He's been with other people since that night, but he's never forgotten. He never forgets any of them. 

Her hair is shorter than it was back then. She has a soft curve to her belly now, overlying muscle. Lusher hair between her legs, still making neat, tight curls. Her breasts are just a little larger, the aureoles just a little wider. He skin looks silvery-brown in this light.

He reaches for her and she comes to him, settling carefully onto his lap, facing him, pulling him toward her so she’s taking some of his weight again, easing the muscles around his spine. 

She kisses him now, still doing most of the work, making small bites against his lips, exploring his mouth with her tongue. The tips of her breasts brush against his chest. His hands are on her hips. It's easy to rest them at that level, no strain on his shoulders, and she wriggles up against him as if to let him know that's just fine.

He's surprised how quickly she reaches down between their bodies, hand on his cock again, lifting her hips, gripping as though to guide him.

“You're not ready,” he murmurs against her lips, and she laughs.

“Skywalker,” she says. “I've been ready since I saw you at the victory party.”

And she is, he finds, as the head of his cock touches those curls, and they're completely wet, and the sweet skin underneath is slick and warm. 

He gasps, then, when instead of sliding him into her she suddenly stops and begins to move away.

But it's just for a moment, as she moves to his side, puts one hand on his shoulder and one against his back, and says, “Lie down.”

He’s still trying to recover from her breaking contact, and he must look confused. “Lie down,” she says again. “I can tell you're running on empty fuel cells, you’re going to pass out if you don't. And I'll be deeply pissed we didn't get to finish.”

He lets her guide him, so his back’s against the forest floor. The soft-bladed plants and loamy soil welcome him down. Something sharp pricks at his right shoulder blade but watching Kala makes it easy to ignore.

She takes the time to pull his boots off, tugs off his trousers and underclothes. He tries to lift his body to help her, but she does most of it.

Once he's naked--and now something's digging into his left thigh, but he shifts a bit and it eases--she spends a moment standing at his feet, looking down at him. Then she settles down to straddle his waist, still careful, so careful, and wraps her hand around his cock, and slides him in.

It's so very, very sweet. He's almost too tired to sense her through the Force but he does, just a little, just enough. She's not asking anything. She's not needing anything. She's made a good life for a good cause and her squadron made it through, today, and she's proud of them, and she's proud for herself, and she's proud, he discovers to his surprise, to be here taking care of him.

Kala leans forward to press her body against his and his arms come up around her, and she’s moving her strong body against his and his cock is held snugly inside of her, sliding with her as she moves, and he doesn't have the strength to warn her before he comes but it doesn't matter, because he can feel her muscles pulsing against him and she cries out just at the same time, shuddering to stillness in his arms.

“Skywalker,” she says against his shoulder, and he tightens his arms around her. “ _Damn._ "

 

He wakes up to the sounds of the forest, chirps and hoots from unseen wildlife welcoming the sun. Kala is curled at his side, the two blankets covering them both.

There is blue sky in patches above the tall trees. Sunlight glints silver off ships up there above the atmosphere. Luke stretches out his thoughts and finds only friendly energy, Alliance pilots and crews waiting for the planetside troops to come back on board.

There are going to be lot of hangovers in the Alliance this morning.

His arms and legs and back and neck are still stiff, muscles still tender, but he moves experimentally and finds it’s a little better than it was.

Luke closes his eyes again and opens his mind to this moon of Endor, to sleeping Ewoks, cuddled up together in their high tree huts. To Alliance pilots, some of them cuddled up together, too, in huts and transports and out in other places on the forest floor. To the ground troops and admin teams and techs, who keep things running so Luke and Kala and Wedge and the others can win their battles among the stars.

To the little six-legged insects that gnaw on the tree trunks, to the green lizards that eat the six-legged insects, to the small furry creature that’s watching him from the edge of this clearing, wondering if he has anything to eat.

Luke wonders, too. If the shuttle has no med kit, it probably doesn't have emergency rations, either. 

When Kala wakes up, they can take the shuttle up there, find some breakfast, reconnect with their teams.

The Death Star is destroyed. Vader is no longer a threat. The Emperor is dead.

It's time to get back to work.


End file.
